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Wednesday, March 2, 2016

The best way to see Italy is by train

Text by Tim Parks has lived in Italy since 1981. The most
recent of his four books about his adopted home is Italian ways. On and off the
Rails from Milan to Palermo (US$13.50; Harvil Secken). Executive summary by darmansjah,
picture adapted in google.

Train travel in Italy is never simply time lost waiting to
reach your destination: in figuring out the ticketing system, getting your head
round the PA announcements, dealing with the conductors, and watching the
landscape unfold outside while your fellow passengers inside gesticulate their
way through some Latin melodrama, you’re going to learn a huge amount about
Italy even before you set foot in the cobbled piazzas, or pick up the menu in
the first trattoria.

A whole range of train experiences can be had: the slow
regionali crawlingfro mone campanile (belltower) to the next, the high-speed
Fecce racing at 220mph from Turin, through Milan, Bologna, Rome and Naples all
the way down to Salerno, and the pompous old Intercities, with their
ochre-curtained compartments anddusty upholstery making the epic coastal runs
down the Adriatic to lecce and the Tyrrhenian to Reggio Calabria. It’s best to
try both first-and second class, if only to see how often, in first on a
regionale, half the passengers will disappear when the ticket collector comes
around and then drift back when he’s safely gone. It’s reassuring that by UK
standards the prices are always going to seem low, even when you take the
Italo, the new private train that rushes you non-stop from Milan to Rome in
just two hours 45 minutes.

Italy was unified, one pundit claimed in the 1860s, con
eserciti e ferrovie – with armies and railways – an although no-one but the
carabinieri travel armed these days, trains are still a great way to get a grip
on the whole peninsula and hazards of Italian driving and the dull
disorientation of planes and airports.

Different rolling stock and standards of cleanliness will
give you a good idea of the development gap between north and south. In the
prosperous north, the frequent fast, reservations-only trains are crowding out
the slower regionali. The government obliges the railways to offer ‘social
prices’ for commuters, so some trains haveto be dirt cheap, but there are fewer and fewer of them, and they are
ever more crowded. In compensation, on the fast trains you can show your internet-purchased
ticket to the conductor on your mobile without wasting any time at ticket
windows or machines.

In the far south there are no fast trains and the conductor
has never seen a ticket on a mobile. That said, by far may favourite journey in
Italy is the long ride round the southern Calabrian coast from Reggio to
Crotone, then along the Gulf of Taranto, the instep of Italy’s boot, to Puglia.
Noisy ,two-carriage diesels with primitive air-conditioning trundle you along
an endless string of tiny stations – Torre Melissa, Ciro, Curcoli, Cariati,
Mandatoriccio Campana, Calopezzati, Mirto Crosia, Old men are drinking wine
under sunshades on the platform; there’s the haunting sound of a bell ringing
to announce the arrival of the train; cactuses growing wild beside the line;
the sea to right, a solid dazzle of blue, and the thirsty southern hills to the
left; rocks and fig trees; villas, villages and squat ancient towers. The eight-hour
journey has a dreamy, meditative feel that helps you understand how the very
idea of punctuality might seem mad to someone who grew up in these parts.

From the south, there’s only one smart way back. The night
train from Lecce, a 13-hour ride. If you’re with your partner, splash out and
get a two-bed compartment all to yourselves. The rhythm of the rails and the
soft swaying of the carriage as it races along the moonlight beaches of the
Adriatic are a guaranteed aphrodisiac. Under the vast vaulted spaces of Milan’s
magnificent station, at 7am, a strong cappuccino is waiting to usher your back
into the world of important appointments and serious timetables.